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That was all. What of the crowd remained-for many had probably crept away awe-stricken as the preternatural darkness deepened-was overtaken with a sense of wrong and sorrow; the insults and abuse too, seem to have nearly worn themselves out. From the point of a hyssop " stick, someone, in sympathy perhaps, put a sponge, filled with the ordinary drink of soldiers to His lips. For a moment this would allay the devouring" thirst," and the placid sufferer did not refuse it, as He refused the stupefying drug. That sour sponge moistened His scorched lips; but soon came His last words; words of settled repose and resignation: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit!" followed by that declaration of victory: "It is finished!" Bowing His head, the Lord Jesus gave up His life-a Divine "Sacrifice," a Sacrifice which" opened 66 a fountain "" for Sin and for Uncleanness."

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The portentous darkness which crept over the last hours-it was not an eclipse of the sun, for the moon was at full-came to hide the shame and symbolise the guilt of the actors in this tragedy. But it symbolised, too, the awful spiritual darkness around Jesus when "forsaken" of His Father. Yet it was only temporary-the physical gloom lasted three hours; the terrible mental gloom probably less. Nature's darkness did its work and then retired. So the spiritual" shadow of death." Jesus did not die in darkness. The sun uncovered its face and shone clearly on His last moments; and the mental darkness gave place to a Divine effulgence. In clear, full sunlight, and in Heaven-light Jesus left the world. In the agonies of this gloom we trace the meaning of the sacred penmen-“ He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; " "I looked for some one to take pity, but there was none;""they gave Me also gall for meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." A sorrow unto death came upon Jesus in the Garden; at Calvary it returned with increased intensity. But these intenser "sorrows were not induced by the sufferings on the Cross. They were quite of another character. The driving of the nails, the shock to the system, the laceration of muscles, tissues, nerves, in feet and hands, the local inflammation, the weight of the body-which would be relieved by a thick block of wood, nailed as a narrow seat to the centre of the upright beam, and on which the weight would partly rest-the fever, and the all-consuming "thirst," would produce pain of quite another kind. The intenser sufferings we say were not of the Cross, nor from the nails, nor wounds, nor fever, nor thirst, nor exposure. These often took days to end life, but Jesus died in about six hours. It was not physical pain, but " sorrows unto death," which drained out His life-" Sorrows" mysteriously linked with the work of Redemption. The bodily pain was simply a symbol of the mental, spiritual agonies; and the "blood of sprinkling," the "blood" which "cleanseth from all sin," could not have been merely and literally crucifixion blood; blood from torn limbs; but that as an emblem of the " offered " Life, and of the Love which freely gave the Life; that Life with its Love, which of its own choice poured itself out as 66 a Sacrifice to God," and as " a ransom for many." In the mysterious union of that Life with God, inheres the secret of the "preciousness" of the "blood of the New Testament," which "redeemed

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us to God;" the "blood" as an expression of the Life, in which lies the efficacy of the great offering;" the "blood" which " purgeth," “maketh_white," giveth "remission;" the "precious blood," which came from the pierced side and heart, so closely allied to, and so beautifully symbolical of the Life which, through Death, Paul says, 66 saves (Rom. v. 10). Ah! the desert Prophet knew it-" The Lamb of God, which taketh away the Sin of the world.”

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Now, all was over, and a Lost world was Redeemed. An earthquake made the ground tremble, split the rocks, rent the Temple's "veil," shook open the City "graves," till, "afterwards," visions of the dead were seen in the Jerusalem streets. A terror came over the guilty rabble. Nature in convulsions roused reflection; all violence and fierce passion ended, and men seemed satisfied and silenced when life had gone. Even the "centurion" of the soldiers, who had seen the last breath escape, exclaimed, "Certainly, this was a righteous man"! "truly, this was the Son of God"! Power in the Cross already; as Jesus told those Greeks -dead seed sends forth living grain. The first-fruits on this tragic ground:-Life coming out of Death; Death sending forth Life; and the two linked, as in the corn-seed. A Cross for ever an emblem of New life! A reaction, a revulsion of feeling ensued now. Many wailed and passionately "smote their breasts" as they returned homewards. They felt an "innocent Man" had been cruelly, wantonly murdered. The Jewish rulers, however, thought themselves victorious. They had made an end of it. But this was no end of Jesus on the Cross; it was the beginning. Jesus had strange wonders in store for the near future; worlds of conflict, and miracles of victory, of revolution, too, not far off. The end is not yet," in this nineteenth century; though history tells all round how Jesus has already changed society, and the character of the race. For these men an end had come; Caiaphas deposed, Herod an infamous exile, Annas and his children hated; Pilate an execrated suicide: it was all over, too, with their corrupt system, national and religious, with their guilty City, with their successful falsehood, pride, crime, oppression, shams-and, indeed, their very nationality. Early, Jesus had "given up the Ghost," but to be sure of death, and to hurry off the barbarous business before the Sabbath hours arrived, the soldiers were bound, and especially at such rapid executions, to break the legs of criminals before burial. The two thieves were thus treated, but the corpse of Jesus was spared this barbarity because it was seen "He was dead already." As in the "Pascal Lamb," no "bone" was "broken." But to be doubly sure, or in case it might be syncope, a soldier thrust into the side of the dead body "a spear," which reached the region of the heart. "Forthwith," we are told, came there out blood and water." John wondered how and why, but could not explain it. He could “record” it, and leave it; he "knew" it was there; "he that saw it bare record," and "the record is true." Probably there had been some rupture of a large blood-vessel in the thorax or chest cavity; the aorta, for instance, or else of the heart itself. Cases of heart-rupture have frequently occurred under the pressure of extreme emotion, and this might partly account for the early death of Jesus. Was not David prophetic when he wrote, "Reproach hath broken My

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heart"? If so, the life-fluid so let, would, as it cooled, coagulate, “clot," and the serum or watery fluid in it would separate from the red and white corpuscles, and lie at the top, either in the thorax or in the cap (pericardium) of the heart. The "clot" (crassamentum) sinks to the bottom because it is heavier than the serum; and also from the contraction of the network of fibrine, which holds in its meshes the corpuscles, and squeezes the water out. Blood let after death never coagulates, and in the veins very slowly; then this water must have proceeded from blood which had escaped before death, and death could not have preceded its liberation. In the pericardium, which holds the heart, there is always a quantity of water, which serves to keep it smooth and moist, and this 'water" spoken of by John when the weapon entered the region of the heart, may have come either from coagulated blood, or from the bag in which the heart lodges, or from both, following the path of the spearwound; or there may have been "serous effusions" from vessels of covering membranes. John saw the spear thrust, saw the wound opened, saw the strange phenomenon of "blood and water," and ever after felt the virtue, not simply of the " Lamb of God," but of the “Lamb brought to the slaughter;" of " the Lamb slain; " of "the blood of the Lamb;" of the "washing white" in "the blood of the Lamb; " and of the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." The mission work of the Bethlehem-born babe ends here; and since His advent all history is His willing witness. In His history, we have a Divine ideal of Life; in His Cross, an infinite redemption from Death (Matt. xxvii. 20—56; Mark xv. 13-41; Luke xxiii. 13-49; John xix. 6—37).

CRUCIS SUPPLICIUM.

THE STORY OF A WATCH SEAL;

OR, THE REMARKABLE PRESERVATION OF HUMAN LIFE.

A GENTLEMAN in Philadelphia narrates the following remarkable fact. Not long since, while talking with a gentleman from Philadelphia, I noticed hanging upon his watch-chain an odd-looking seal, and asked permission to examine the same more closely.

"Certainly," replied my friend, handing the seal to me; "you will find it different from any you ever saw before, I think."

And it was. The seal was cut upon a square stone set in gold, and the device was that of a hen walking away from a newly-laid egg, which lay upon the earth behind her. Nothing more.

I examined the stone and cutting carefully. It was evidently very old, but I was completely puzzled to decipher the meaning of the device, and at last said so to my companion.

He smiled.

"I do not wonder. The seal has a story, but it does not tell it on its face; although, if you care to hear, you will agree with me that it is the proper point of the history which has been impressed here."

"Indeed, I should like nothing better than to have you give me the story of the hen and her egg, if you will," said I.

"Well, then, you must know," began my friend, "that my great grandfather was an Englishman and a Quaker. He joined the disciples of George Fox when a young man, about 1675, and was very soon called upon to put his principles to the test of persecution. You may recollect that from about 1670 to 1700 the persecution of the Quakers in many ways was active in England, and many were forced on account of it to flee that country, and seek a refuge either in the West Indies or the Colonies, as this country was then called.

"My ancestor had suffered considerably, and had at last joined a band of nineteen others, all unmarried, and most of them young Quakers, with the purpose of fleeing from England, when, just as they were about to start, they were all seized and thrown into prison. While in confinement they were subjected to many tortures and questionings, but all remained true to the faith. They were at last taken in a body and placed in a bare room, having but one aperture on the floor and another at the top, and walled in—that is, the doors and windows built up about them; their persecutors saying that they should leave them there, without food, water, or light, for twenty days, and if the Lord was good to them and loved them sufficiently to support them during that time, then at the end of twenty days they might go free; but that if the Lord forgot them, they would be furnished graves at the State's expense.

"At the end of the twenty days the living tomb was opened. Naturally the persecutors expected to find their victims all dead. They did find all dead except my great-grandfather, and, although astonished that he had lived, they set him free.

"He at once sailed for the West Indies, and afterwards came to the Colonies, settling near what is now New York.

"When first imprisoned, my ancestor found himself near the small opening in the wall at the floor, and hoping against hope, as a young man will, he remained near this inlet for fresh air. The first day of their imprisonment a hen came in at this hole and laid an egg upon the floor close to my great-grandfather; and for each succeeding day of the twenty she continued to do so. Believing it a direct interposition of God in his behalf my ancestor accepted it, ate the egg each day brought to him, and so lived when the others died. Years afterwards he sought to commemorate his wonderful escape by the cut upon this seal. But for this hen and her eggs, probably I should not be here."

SIR RICHARD TEMPLE said lately in London :-" As an old Finance Minister of India, I ought to know, if anybody does, when the money's worth is got by any operation; and I say that, of all departments I have ever administered, I never saw one more efficient than the missionary department; and of all the hundreds of thousands of officers I had under my command, I have never seen a better body of men than the Protestant missionaries."

A STARTLING FACT AS TO HOW THE MASSES SPEND THEIR SUNDAYS.

THE question of what is to be done to reclaim the out-lying masses is being earnestly discussed in English Congregational circles. Mr. Samuel Morley presided at a meeting recently, in which he stated a startling fact. It was this: One Sabbath evening a double census was taken in a London district-the first to ascertain the number of church-goers, the second to find the number who frequent the public-house. The result showed that while in twenty-five places of worship there were 5,570 people, in thirtyfive public-houses there were 5,591. "That," Mr. Morley said, "was a definite way of putting what they had long known. It indicated the tendency among the people to pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence." But how was the thing to be remedied? The suggestion meeting with most favour was the erection of halls all over the city in which the Gospel might be preached in a less formal way than was possible in the churches, and the suggestion is already in process of being carried out.

HYMN.

"I am Thine; save me."-(Psalm cxix. 94). LORD, "I am Thine,"-formed by Thy hand, To spread abroad Thy praise;

Thy holy will to understand,

And walk in wisdom's ways.

Lord, "I am Thine,"-guarded and fed

By Thee from day to day,

As on from stage to stage I'm led

Along my pilgrim way.

Lord, "I am Thine," called by Thy voice

To seek the things above;

And with Thy children to rejoice,

Assured of pard'ning love.

Lord, "I am Thine,"-Oh may I feel

Thy witness in my breast;

And may I strive with holy zeal

To gain the promised rest.]

Lord, "I am Thine,"-Oh keep my feet

From every evil way;

And fit me by Thy grace to meet

The coming Judgment-day.

Dollar, N.B.

T. BRADSHAW.